nor, or twenty governors, that
will stop me."

CHAPTER XLII.

A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK.

"Have you any notion what was the cause?"

"None," said Reginald. "Oh, no, none at all," said Ursula. They were all
three standing at the door of the sick-room, in which already a great
transformation had taken place. The doctor had sent a nurse to attend
upon the patient. He had told them that their father was attacked by
some mysterious affection of the brain, and that none of them were equal
to the responsibility of nursing him. His children thus banished had set
the door ajar, and were congregated round it watching what went on
within. They did not know what to do. It was Northcote who was asking
these questions; it was he who was most active among them. The others
stood half-stunned, wholly ignorant, not knowing what to do.

"I don't think papa is ill at all," said Janey. "Look how he glares
about him, just as I've seen him do when he was writing a sermon, ready
to pounce upon any one that made a noise. He is watching that woman. Why
should he lie in bed like that, and be taken care of when he is just as
well as I am? You have made a mistake all the rest of you. I would go
and speak to him, and tell him to get up and not make all this fuss, if
it was me."

"Oh, Janey! hold your tongue," said Ursula; but she, too, looked
half-scared at the bed, and then turned wistful inquiring eyes to
Northcote. As for Reginald, he stood uncertain, bewildered, all the
colour gone out of his face, and all the energy out of his heart. He
knew nothing of his father's affairs, or of anything that might disturb
his mind. His mind; all that his son knew of this was, that whatsoever
things disturbed other minds his father had always contemptuously
scouted all such nonsense. "Take some medicine," Mr. May had been in the
habit of saying. "Mind! you mean digestion," was it nothing more than
some complicated indigestion that affected him now?

"Is it anything about--money?" said Northcote.

They all turned and looked at him. The idea entered their minds for the
first time. Yes, very likely it was money.

"We have always been poor," said Ursula, wistfully. Northcote took her
hand into his; none of them except Ursula herself paid any attention to
this involuntary, almost unconscious caress, and even to her it seemed a
thing of course, and quite natural that he should be one of them, taking
his share in all that was going on.

"I--am not poo